ready to tell her dad and her mum would beat her enough to make sure the kid never saw out the first trimester.
She wanted to keep it, leave school and live with Carlo. She could serve at the counter for six months and after that she’d be a stay at home mum, make a nest they could share, a cosy place that would be a cut above the council scheme she was used to.
Carlo didn’t say anything. Instead, a hug of reassurance, a pat on the behind and a poke of chips “on the house” did their job and she left with a half smile on her lips.
Turning the open sign to closed, he hooked up his apron, left the ladies to get on with things and headed for the Cross Keys. Having a glass in his hand always made life easier to understand.
The landlord, Billy, knew all about the Ramsays. They’d graduated from the Tranent Young Team and had a brief spell with the Hibs Casuals.
Local folklore had it that they used the derelict farm up near the cemetery as their base. There were tales of broken bones, cuttings and even a crucifixion. He’d seen clips of them on You Tube working away on some bloke with a pair of pliers. Their faces were hidden, but everyone in town knew who they were watching.
They were involved in drugs, loan sharking and a bit of dog-fighting every now and then.
Their mother was known to everyone as Nan. Nan was where Carlo and just about everyone else went to get cheap fags. She sold them singly to those that were really hard up or too young to know better, with special deals for the under 9s. The Ramsays were likely to be allied to ‘The Happy Haddock’ given that the older one of them was sleeping with Nan’s half-sister, whose brother owned the joint.
As Billy pulled Carlo another pint, he started on about Kylie’s dad. Bert was put away for tying a man to a car and dragging him around the Heugh for slapping his sister, that and for driving under-age and without a licence. Family life had cooled the fire in his belly, though Billy saw him as a dormant volcano.
The stories that followed were hardly better news.
Opposite Carlo’s place was the ‘Quick N Eazy’, run by Ray and Jim McMerry. They worked like a tag team when it came to a scrap, the kind that would have had grannies screaming at their sets when wrestling was still taken seriously.
Then there was Kwok or Kwang or whatever his name was at ‘Peking Cuisine’. He was bound to be Bruce Lee or a Triad or both.
No, it wasn’t looking good for Carlo Salvino, not until his fifth whisky gave him inspiration. There was nothing to be scared of.
Who, he asked himself, who outside of the area had ever heard of the town? They didn’t even have a football team. It was a blackhead on the face of a giant and it was about time someone gave it a squeeze.
First he went for the McMerrys. The ‘Quick N Eazy’ had slashed its prices to keep up with him and the Ramsay boys were likely to have paid a visit to them too.
As far as he could see, outside of a good fight and making a few quid, there was only one thing that Ray and Jim cared about. Their cat was pure Russian Blue and worth a few bob. An elegant thing, Carlo imagined she was the sort of creature a pharaoh might have wanted to have with him in his tomb.
Beautiful she may have been, but loyal she was not. It took nothing more than chocolate drops and Catnip to get her to go with him.
Making sure she was safely secured in his laundry basket, Carlo went on to complete the next part of the plan.
Sitting with Kylie’s dad, he could see why she wanted to move. The furniture stank, the carpet was hardly worth the name and the swirls on the wallpaper were making him dizzy. Outside the dirty brown render on the houses made it look like god had puked over every single one of them and the line of satellite dishes made it look like everyone on the street was trying to contact alien beings to get them the hell out of there.
Bert
She wanted to keep it, leave school and live with Carlo. She could serve at the counter for six months and after that she’d be a stay at home mum, make a nest they could share, a cosy place that would be a cut above the council scheme she was used to.
Carlo didn’t say anything. Instead, a hug of reassurance, a pat on the behind and a poke of chips “on the house” did their job and she left with a half smile on her lips.
Turning the open sign to closed, he hooked up his apron, left the ladies to get on with things and headed for the Cross Keys. Having a glass in his hand always made life easier to understand.
The landlord, Billy, knew all about the Ramsays. They’d graduated from the Tranent Young Team and had a brief spell with the Hibs Casuals.
Local folklore had it that they used the derelict farm up near the cemetery as their base. There were tales of broken bones, cuttings and even a crucifixion. He’d seen clips of them on You Tube working away on some bloke with a pair of pliers. Their faces were hidden, but everyone in town knew who they were watching.
They were involved in drugs, loan sharking and a bit of dog-fighting every now and then.
Their mother was known to everyone as Nan. Nan was where Carlo and just about everyone else went to get cheap fags. She sold them singly to those that were really hard up or too young to know better, with special deals for the under 9s. The Ramsays were likely to be allied to ‘The Happy Haddock’ given that the older one of them was sleeping with Nan’s half-sister, whose brother owned the joint.
As Billy pulled Carlo another pint, he started on about Kylie’s dad. Bert was put away for tying a man to a car and dragging him around the Heugh for slapping his sister, that and for driving under-age and without a licence. Family life had cooled the fire in his belly, though Billy saw him as a dormant volcano.
The stories that followed were hardly better news.
Opposite Carlo’s place was the ‘Quick N Eazy’, run by Ray and Jim McMerry. They worked like a tag team when it came to a scrap, the kind that would have had grannies screaming at their sets when wrestling was still taken seriously.
Then there was Kwok or Kwang or whatever his name was at ‘Peking Cuisine’. He was bound to be Bruce Lee or a Triad or both.
No, it wasn’t looking good for Carlo Salvino, not until his fifth whisky gave him inspiration. There was nothing to be scared of.
Who, he asked himself, who outside of the area had ever heard of the town? They didn’t even have a football team. It was a blackhead on the face of a giant and it was about time someone gave it a squeeze.
First he went for the McMerrys. The ‘Quick N Eazy’ had slashed its prices to keep up with him and the Ramsay boys were likely to have paid a visit to them too.
As far as he could see, outside of a good fight and making a few quid, there was only one thing that Ray and Jim cared about. Their cat was pure Russian Blue and worth a few bob. An elegant thing, Carlo imagined she was the sort of creature a pharaoh might have wanted to have with him in his tomb.
Beautiful she may have been, but loyal she was not. It took nothing more than chocolate drops and Catnip to get her to go with him.
Making sure she was safely secured in his laundry basket, Carlo went on to complete the next part of the plan.
Sitting with Kylie’s dad, he could see why she wanted to move. The furniture stank, the carpet was hardly worth the name and the swirls on the wallpaper were making him dizzy. Outside the dirty brown render on the houses made it look like god had puked over every single one of them and the line of satellite dishes made it look like everyone on the street was trying to contact alien beings to get them the hell out of there.
Bert
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